


Serenade

by remanth



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Johnlock - Freeform, Music, Nightmares, Serenade, Sleep, Unrequited, violin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 09:29:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1261360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remanth/pseuds/remanth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has nightmares and the only thing that can draw him out of them is the music.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Serenade

The sound of gunfire and screams ratcheted around John Watson’s mind, assaulting his ears. He knew he was having a nightmare but that didn’t make the scene before him any less real. Or any less of a memory. He hated this nightmare, hated seeing the man he’d tried to save and failed. Of course, there was only so much John could have done once he was shot. The bullet had passed so close to his heart and the only thought in John’s head was _Please, God, let me live_. He had but the poor soldier John’d run out into the middle of a firefight to tend to hadn’t.

That’s where this particular nightmare always started, running out to Steve’s side. After John had recovered from his own wound, he’d searched for what had happened to Steve. No one wanted to speak to him about anything other than his health. Then again, that was enough for John. There were only so many ways doctors used to talk around a subject and John knew them all. Steve had died on that battlefield. But not in John’s nightmares. In John’s nightmares, he always came back, anger and accusation in his eyes.

“You failed, Doctor Watson,” Steve told John, standing above the wounded doctor as he bled from the wounds in his stomach. There’d been a fairly good chance that John wouldn’t have been able to save the man in any case but that hadn’t stopped him from trying. “I died because you didn’t do your job.”

“No, I did my job,” John argued, voice tight with the pain in his shoulder. It always burned like this, whenever John had this nightmare. The scar tissue felt fresh and painful, as if he’d just been shot. “I did the best I could. It’s not my fault you died.”

“But it is, Doctor Watson, and you know it,” Steve growled, glaring down at John. “You could have saved me. Should have saved me. And now my family is grieving for me. I never get to go home. Not like you did.”

“I didn’t want to go home,” John murmured, unable to tell anything but the truth in his nightmare, no matter how uncomfortable it might be. “I wanted the thrill, the danger, the adrenaline. There was nothing back home for me. It should have been me in your place, Steve. You should have been able to go home.”

Steve only laughed and turned away, blood still draining from the wound in his stomach. That wound was sloppily bandaged, the tape slipping in all the blood on the skin. John had barely started working on Steve when he’d been shot, red staining his hands as it flowed down his arm. Blood all looked the same, he’d mused in the moment of shock before what had happened penetrated. John watched the soldier stagger away, body decaying as he went. There was nothing he could do then and nothing he could do now as the man died. But this time, something was different in the nightmare. There was a quiet music, one he just barely heard over the screams and the guns. Violin music.

It was beautiful, comforting, calming, familiar. John smiled slightly as he listened to it, not quite placing how he knew it. He just knew he did and that the music meant home. As the music took over the nightmare, the screams and gunshots fading, John felt the pain in his shoulder fade until it was nothing more than a memory. The wound was back to how it was in his waking life, a mess of scar tissue and dead nerve endings. And John was able to get up, follow the music out of the hell of his nightmares and into something better. Of course, before he could make out the face of the figure playing, standing in shadows and watching John intently, his alarm went off.

“Wake up, John,” Mary’s sleepy voice said in John’s ear as the alarm beeped annoyingly from the nightstand next to their bed. “Your shift at the clinic starts in an hour and a half.”

“Yep, getting up,” John muttered, shaking his head slightly as he sat up to clear the music from it. That wasn’t the first time he’d dreamed of violin music and the shadowy figure. But it was the first time he’d woken up from that nightmare to silence in the flat. It was disconcerting to hear Sherlock playing again but not wake up to him playing downstairs. The music that had coaxed John out of his nightmares had been at times a lullaby, a serenade, a battle call, or a like a joke inviting him to laugh. Without warning, a curious grief and loss boiled up from John’s belly and stuck in his throat. He swallowed a few times, trying to get rid of the lump but failing.

“You were struggling a bit in your sleep, dear,” Mary said soothingly, running a hand over John’s shoulders. “Nightmares?”

“Yeah, sometimes I get them. It’s nothing really,” John replied, pulling Mary’s hand around his shoulder and pressing a kiss to the palm. “Go back to sleep, Mary. I know it’s your day off.”

As Mary nodded and lay back down, John went through his morning routine worriedly. That nightmare tended to crop up under specific circumstances, more often than some of the others he’d had. Usually when he was feeling particularly useless or unsafe. Or if he didn’t belong. He’d felt all three on coming back to London the first few months after he’d been discharged. But when he moved in with Sherlock, got to know the man and became friends, those feelings had dissipated. And the violin music had definitely helped. John never counted the times he’d padded down the stairs to sit on the couch in silence and listen to Sherlock play. It was never anything choppy or discordant or tense, just easy and smooth. They’d never talked about it the next morning, merely adding those nights to a routine that felt easy and right.

But now, even though he’d forgiven Mary and had chosen not to look into her past, there was a part of John that was always on watch. A small part that never let down it’s guard, that whispered _Danger is right there. You’re in danger and you need to get out_. John had learned to mostly tune out that voice, shove it into his subconscious so he didn’t have to face it during the day. Yet dreams and nightmares dwelled in the realm of the subconscious and John couldn’t run away then. John shoved all his worried thoughts away as he headed out the door and resolutely concentrated on the day ahead. If there was one thing he’d learned in his time at the clinic, it was that you couldn’t predict what the day would bring.

\---------------------------------------------------------

A few nights later, John was resolutely trapped in his nightmare yet again. This was a different one, built around the same circumstances. Instead of focusing on the fallen soldier, John’s attention was all on himself. He could feel every breath heaving in and out of his lungs, feel the burn in his thighs as he bolted from cover towards Steve. Felt the fear and spike of adrenaline as he saw the other soldier fall and made the decision to try and save him. The heat of the sun was like a hammer striking the top of his head while the sand actually made little crunching noises under John’s feet. This time, he saw the person who shot him. This time, John looked death in the face as it pulled the trigger.

And this time, Death wore Mary’s face. She smiled as she watched John run, carefully lining up her shot. John only had a moment to feel pure terror and confusion as Mary’s finger squeezed the trigger and the gun barked in her hand. The smile grew wider as a rhinoceros slammed into John’s shoulder and he fell to the ground next to Steve. The other man was already gone, eyes glazing over in death. Mary continued to smile, watching as John’s blood leaked out of the wound. And this time, there was no violin music to pull John away from the nightmare. No comforting serenade to cover the sight of his wife, the woman who had just shot him. A tear leaked out of the corner of John’s eye as his world dimmed. The last thing he saw was Mary, blowing him a kiss.

John snapped upright in his bed, breath heaving as he pawed at the collar of his pajamas. He felt at the wound in his shoulder, reassured when dry keloids met his searching fingers. No blood, no gushing hole, no burning pain holding him down. Mary slept on beside him, facing towards the wall. She snored quietly, still deeply asleep. John hadn’t even disturbed her, though he’d learned to keep noise to a minimum during his nightmares at that dreary bedsit he’d lived in. A few too many complaints from his neighbors and he might be kicked out. 

“Just a dream,” John whispered to himself, scrubbing at his eyes with one hand. “Mary didn’t shoot me. She might have shot Sherlock, but not me. And we’re both alive. It’s okay. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

But as John looked over at Mary’s sleeping form, the reality of what she was, who she had been, weighed down heavily on him. She kept secrets, ones that John had willingly helped her keep, that were so terrible she believed he wouldn’t love her after knowing them. That small part of John that kept screaming _danger_ reminded him yet again that he didn’t feel quite safe around Mary anymore. And that little voice was what got him out of bed, carefully oh-so-carefully, and dressing quietly in the darkness. That little voice drove him to head across town in the middle of the night, to the flat he’d once lived in with the man he trusted more than anyone else in the world.

And what do you know? As John stood outside the door to 221B, the strains of violin music floated down from the window above to fill the street below. It was something sad, melancholic, the strings almost weeping notes. John smiled at the familiar sound, a little pain in his heart at how lost the man playing that sad music must feel. He slipped inside and padded up the steps quietly. The door to the flat was open and Sherlock stood staring out the window, swaying gently as he moved the bow across the strings. He didn’t even turn when John settled down onto the couch but John knew he didn’t sneak in unannounced. Whether it was a shift in the air or a smell, Sherlock knew he was there.

The music shifted, to something soft and sweet. John felt his muscles unknot as he relaxed back against the couch. This was home, this was safe, even if he’d recognized it all too late. Letting his head drop to the arm of the couch, John watched Sherlock as the tension left the detective's shoulders and he moved more easily with the music. The last thing he saw was Sherlock turning slightly, moonlight reflecting in his eyes as he watched John fall asleep.


End file.
